Reuters Health News Summary

October 18, 2012|Reuters

Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Meningitis deaths rise, FDA faces new questions

WASHINGTON/BOSTON (Reuters) - The death toll from ameningitis outbreak linked to contaminated steroids jumped to19 on Wednesday, while U.S. lawmakers pressed federal healthregulators to explain what they knew about the pharmacy thatproduced the drugs. The Centers for Disease Control andPrevention said four more deaths had been confirmed in the last24 hours, including two in Tennessee, the state hardest hitwith eight deaths since the infections were discovered in lateSeptember.

ThromboGenics says main drug cleared for U.S. launch

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. health regulators have approvedThromboGenics's main drug, eye treatment Jetrea,clearing the way for the Belgian biotechnology company to makesustainable profits. ThromboGenics said on Thursday the U.S.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had cleared use of the drug,also known as ocriplasmin, for treatment of symptomaticvitreomacular adhesion - an aging-related pulling on the retinathat can cause loss or distortion of vision.

India's Cipla gets tentative U.S. nod for HIV tablets

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian drugmaker Cipla hasreceived a tentative U.S. FDA approval for its HIV treatmenttablets, which have a combination of lamivudine, nevirapine andzidovudine drugs, the drug regulator's website showed. Ciplasells the combination drug under the brand name 'Duovir N'outside the United States.

Focus on new Actelion drug as Tracleer sales slip

ZURICH (Reuters) - Hopes for a key new heart and lung drugovershadowed nine-month results from Actelion Ltd ,which showed a modest 4 percent slide in sales of the Swissgroup's current mainstay Tracleer. Europe's largestbiotechnology company said on Thursday net income rose ahigher-than-expected 16 percent, helped by cost cutting,prompting it to reiterate its 2012 outlook.

World TB cases fall, but drug-resistance a worry : WHO

CHICAGO (Reuters) - New tuberculosis infections dropped 2.2percent worldwide last year, but with nearly 9 million newinfections, the World Health Organization said TB remains amassive problem that could worsen if countries shortchangefunding to fight it. In its annual assessment releasedWednesday, WHO also said only one in five people withdrug-resistant strains of TB is being diagnosed each year,leaving hundreds of thousands of people who are potentiallyinfecting others with this particularly deadly form of thedisease.

Drug showed promise in clearing drug-resistant tuberculosis

CHICAGO (Reuters) - An antibiotic used to treat severebacterial infections showed promise at treating a highlydrug-resistant and deadly form of tuberculosis, U.S. governmentand South Korean researchers said on Wednesday. The study,published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the firstscientifically rigorous clinical trial of Pfizer's antibiotic linezolid, or Zyvox, in patients with extensivelydrug-resistant TB (XDR-TB), which is resistant to at least fourof the drugs most often used to treat the lung infection.

Epilepsy drug leads to weight loss, side effects

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A drug approved to preventseizures may also help obese people lose a few pounds when it'sadded to therapy and nutritional guidance, a new small trialsuggests. But people who took zonisamide also reported moreside effects, from nausea and vomiting to anxiety anddepression. And two researchers not involved in the studyquestioned how much the drug would actually help people in thereal world.

Antidepressants linked to risk of brain bleeds

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People using a common class ofantidepressants may have slightly increased odds of sufferingbleeding in the brain - though the risk is still very small,researchers reported Wednesday. The antidepressants are knownas selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and includewidely used drugs like fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline(Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa) and paroxetine (Paxil).

Some parents misunderstand kids' cancer studies

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children with incurable cancercan take part in early trials of a new drug's safety, but manyparents may misunderstand the goals of those studies, newresearch finds. When researchers test new drugs on humans, theystart with phase 1 clinical trials. Those studies aren't aimedat seeing whether a drug works; instead, researchers arelooking at the drug's safety, and trying to figure out thehighest dose that people can tolerate without troublesome sideeffects.

Analysis links psoriasis, diabetes

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new review of more than twodozen studies adds support to the link between the chronic skindisease psoriasis and diabetes. In studies from the UnitedStates, Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, participantswith psoriasis had anywhere from an equal risk to an almostfour-fold higher risk of developing diabetes than those withoutthe skin condition.